Heart of Gold

by J. R. Ward

  Gertie’s voice, also muffled, was more reasonable. “They’re here somewhere. Hopefully in a bed together.”

  Carter blushed.

  Nick rolled his eyes and got up, pulling a sheet around himself. He opened the door a crack.

  “We’re in here,” he said quietly. “Tell Wessex we’ll call him soon and remind Ivan it’s against the law to shoot at people, even if they’re reporters.”

  “Here are some clean clothes for her,” Buddy said with a grin of satisfaction, as he pushed a duffel bag through the door.

  “You want breakfast?” Gertie asked.

  “That would be great,” Nick replied.

  As the shower came on behind him, he shut the door on their knowing looks.

  Squaring his shoulders, ready to propose marriage to the woman he loved, Nick dropped the bag and the sheet and marched into the bathroom. He found Carter under the water, arching her back to wet her hair. Her breasts were taut, her stomach flat, her hips a gentle curve that made his eyeteeth ache. As soon as he joined her, his lips went to her mouth.

  Carter picked up a bar of soap, lathered her hands, and began to work over his skin until he was gripping the glass shower door with such force his arms hurt. With a punishing attention to detail, she went over every inch of him, teasing and tantalizing him. With his heart pounding and his lungs screaming for more air, his muscles strained to the breaking point as he begged for a release she wouldn’t let him have. He’d never felt so out of control, had never loved the torture of being denied so much. When she finally allowed him relief by wrapping her legs around his hips and taking him into her, he was wild.

  After the fury of passion she’d unleashed was spent, he sagged against the shower’s wall, feeling like he’d been wrung out. Sometime later, he heard the water being turned off, and forced his eyes to open.

  Carter had an extremely satisfied expression on her face.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “G’d mging,” was all he could manage.

  Her smile got even brighter. Moving with enviable ease, she popped out of the shower, grabbed two towels, and passed one to him. He took it but couldn’t seem to lift the damn thing. It just hung down from his hand, the ends getting wet.

  “Let me help you with that,” she offered happily. She tossed the one he’d let get damp aside and coaxed him out of the shower. He stood still while she dried him off, tied the towel around his waist, and pushed him toward the bedroom door.

  “Can you make it to your room?”

  Nick nodded and began to walk away, backward. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  He murmured, “I don’t think I’m ever going to look at a bar of soap in the same way again.”

  “There’s more where that came from,” Carter said. Her husky voice traveled through his ears to his very core.

  As he stepped out into the hallway, Nick’s body was already stirring again.

  Looking down at himself, he said wryly, “Haven’t you had enough?”

  When Carter appeared downstairs, she was wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a crisp white polo shirt, and she felt like a new woman. She didn’t bother to hide her glow of happiness.

  Ellie rushed around the table and into her arms while Buddy leaned back in his chair and gave her a knowing grin. “You’re looking awfully…”

  She shot him a warning look over the top of his daughter’s head.

  “Clean,” he quipped with a wink.

  From across the table, Cort was smiling at her and she said to him, “You’re looking better.”

  “So are you.”

  Gertie bustled over and put a plate of fruit and a cup of coffee on the table.

  “Eat,” the woman said, pointing to an empty chair.

  Carter sat down, did as she was told, and was about to ask for a refill of both when Nick ambled into the room. His eyes sought her out and he looked at her with such tenderness and love, she felt her heartbeat quicken.

  Cort frowned at his uncle.

  “What?” Nick asked him.

  “You look funny.”

  Nick’s eyebrows arched as he sat next to Carter. He smiled a thanks at Gertie as breakfast was pushed in front of him.

  “How do I look funny?” he prompted the kid.

  “I dunno. You look kinda…loopy.”

  Laughter broke out in the room and Ivan wanted in on the joke as he came inside.

  “What’s the laughing for?” he asked.

  “Uncle Nick,” Cort explained. “He looks different, don’t you think?”

  Ivan glanced at the man. “’Course he’s changed. He’s in love.”

  Everyone in the room froze.

  Except for Nick. He reached over, took Carter’s hand, and brought it to his lips. “That’s right.”

  “You know,” Cort said, tilting his head to one side. “You keep smiling so much, you’re going to have to get your driver’s license picture updated. No one’ll recognize you.”

  When Nick rolled his eyes, the kid laughed with delight.

  While he ate, Nick was strategizing about the proposal again. If he could get Carter out on the boat, he thought, that would be perfect. The lake, the sun, a gentle breeze.

  The ring.

  When he jerked like someone had kicked his chair, Carter glanced over at him. “You okay?”

  He nodded with distraction. He didn’t have a ring. He was supposed to have a ring. She deserved a ring.

  Carter gave him an odd look but then pushed her plate away and stared at Buddy purposefully.

  “Where’s the box?” She wadded up her napkin. “You brought it down, didn’t you?”

  The man nodded and disappeared into the mudroom. When he returned, he was carrying the tin construction in his arms, his shoulders hunched from its weight.

  “I photographed everything before I removed it from the cave,” he noted as he put the box on the table in front of her. The kids squirmed in their seats, eager for it to finally be opened.

  Carter stood up and fingered the edge of the top. “The metal’s fused into a tight seal. There’s also a lock. We’re going to have to cut this thing open.”

  “I got the right tool for it,” Ivan said. He returned with a small, battery-powered Sawzall.

  “Do you want to do the honors?” Carter asked Nick.

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t want an archaeologist doing my taxes. I don’t think you want a finance guy playing around with that thing.”

  Cocking a smile at him, Carter fired up the tool and cut a line around the edge of the lid. When she was finished, she wrapped her hands in two cloth napkins and got a grip on the sides.

  Lifting slowly, she said, “Now, let’s not get too excited. This could just be more auto parts.”

  But then the unmistakable glow of gold was revealed.

  “Good Lord.” She exhaled as a swell of surprise and delight filled the room. “Someone get a camera.”

  Nick was stunned. Never in his life had he thought that the fortune would be found. For all his years, he had refused to believe it was still on his land.

  He looked at Carter and was thrilled that she had discovered it. She was wearing an expression of rapt excitement as she cautiously put her hand into the magical jumble and lifted up handfuls of the precious metal. There were coins, pieces of weighty necklaces, earrings with the stones removed, heavy signet rings.

  He couldn’t have asked for a better outcome, he thought.

  “Wait a minute,” she murmured. “There’s something else in here.”

  She burrowed into the box and slowly pulled out a small book. Leather-bound by hand, it was about five inches square, a dull brown in the midst of the radiance. There was a cross drawn on the front.

  Delicately, she slipped her forefinger under the front cover and lifted.

  “J. Winship. Year of Our Lord, 1775,” Carter read. “It’s Winship’s missing journal.”

  As everyone cheered, the exuberant sound reverberated throughout the house.

/>   By early afternoon, Carter had finished reading the entire journal. Nick had given her free run of his study, and she’d spent hours curled up in the chair behind his desk, reading as the sun streamed in through the open windows.

  It was the perfect way to decompress from her harrowing experience. Losing herself in the reverend’s words helped her to feel safer and more grounded. She knew it would take time before she fully recovered from the abduction, but being with Nick and her friends would undoubtedly help. She’d also spoken with her father, who’d been overjoyed at hearing her voice, and that, too, made her feel more steady.

  When she came to the end of the journal, she closed the cover and placed it on the desk. Twirling the chair around, she stared out a window, watching butterflies flirt among the wildflowers in the meadow behind the mansion.

  The artifact was priceless, she thought, one of the most significant finds from the colonial period in the last decade. It told more of Winship’s reluctant but patriotic involvement in the Revolution and everything about the fateful trip into the Adirondacks that had cost him his life.

  It also solved the mystery of who had killed the men.

  Carter got out of the chair, left the journal on the desk, and went in search of the others. She found them down by the lake. Ellie was sunbathing while Cort was snorkeling at the shore. Nick and Buddy were cleaning the sailboat’s decks.

  “What’s the verdict?” Buddy asked as he caught sight of her.

  Nick looked up, a slow, sensual smile coming over his face as their eyes met. He was wearing only swimming trunks, the same black ones he’d worn before, and his body glistened with sweat from his labors in the sun.

  She felt herself warm up considerably.

  “It’s a remarkable story,” she said as Nick came up to her. In front of everyone, he bent down and kissed her on the lips.

  “Tell us everything.” His voice was low and inviting and she could feel the blood surge to her face as she blushed. She couldn’t help but remember the things he’d whispered to her while they’d been making love.

  She cleared her throat and told them what she’d learned.

  “Jonathan Winship was an amazing man. Reflective, serious, and indignant over the British government’s remote control of the colonies. He was an unlikely war hero, a student of the Bible, not a fighter. Still, he had a strength of purpose that was indomitable.” She looked out across the lake. “According to Winship, General Farnsworth was pure evil. He tells everything about how the man was arrested in New York for raping and beating that woman.

  “After the exchange for Nathaniel Walker was worked out, the Winship party headed into the Adirondacks with Red Hawk in the lead and the general in shackles. They were carrying the gold for the troop supplies with them. When they got to the base of Lake Sagamore, they were supposed to hand the strongbox over to other revolutionaries. Their compatriots never showed, however, and they were forced to take the fortune with them.

  “As they made their way toward the fort, Red Hawk took good care of his charges, leading them through the mountains by the most direct route possible. When he got them to the place designated for the trade, the guide disappeared into the woods, having discharged his duty. Soon thereafter, the party was ambushed. The two minutemen and Reverend Winship were no match for the well-trained redcoats who attacked them. The American soldiers were killed, and Winship was stabbed in the belly by the general, a mortal wound as things would turn out.

  “Farnsworth was about to finish the job on Winship, had a bayonet poised over the reverend’s head, when Red Hawk came back. Materializing, as if from the ether, as Winship put it, the Indian fell upon Farnsworth, injuring him badly. Five British soldiers set upon the Algonquin, but with what Winship termed a terrible grace and power, the Indian killed two outright and the other three scattered through the woods.”

  “Holy sh—” Cort stumbled. “I mean, cool.”

  “While Farnsworth lay bloodied on the ground, Red Hawk came to Winship’s side. The reverend asked to be helped up and went around to the fallen men, including the general, and performed last rites. He knew time was of the essence. The three Brits would return with reinforcements, and he had to hide if he had a chance at surviving. Red Hawk helped him through the wilderness to the cave and then went back for the gold. After the Indian returned with the strongbox, he asked if the reverend, who was clearly dying, had any last requests. Winship asked that the bodies of the dead men be buried and a cross placed at the head of each grave. Red Hawk left and Winship never saw him again.”

  There was a long silence and then Carter finished the tale. “The reverend knew he wouldn’t survive and his last entry in the journal was barely legible.”

  “What was it?” Ellie asked softly.

  The words had been burned into Carter’s memory because she’d read them over and over again. They left her lips as if she’d known them all her life. “‘A stronger nation shall be lifted high on the backs of men united by honor and the grace of God. For all who know love for their fellow man shall be as one under the heavens. Brothers are found not of the same womb but of similar hearts. Thank you, Red Brother.’”

  “So Red Hawk was a hero,” Cort whispered in awe.

  Carter nodded.

  “What happened to him?” Ellie asked. “He must have been killed.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  Curious eyes looked Carter’s way.

  “The reverend’s final entry wasn’t the last one. Red Hawk’s was. It was hard for me to decipher the language but I believe the saying can be translated as, ‘So the Hawk flies from the earth, to the Great Spirit and beyond, as does the man. Be at peace, pale Father.’”

  “That’s incredible,” Buddy said solemnly. “The find of a lifetime.”

  “I have a feeling,” Carter said, “that Red Hawk came back, buried Reverend Winship in the cave, and etched that cross in the stone wall over his grave.”

  “So we should go excavate,” Buddy prompted.

  “No. I think we should just leave him be,” Carter said slowly, shaking her head. “He should be left in peace. We have the diary. That’s enough of him.”

  Nick nodded. “I agree.”

  Carter stood up from her perch. “And now I need to go to the university. I want to get my colleagues started on conserving the journal. I don’t want any more deterioration to occur and it needs to be copied as soon as possible.” She turned to Nick. “And we should probably lock up the gold somehow. It needs to be studied, too, but I’m not sure where I can put it at the university.”

  “You can use my safe until you get that figured out.”

  “Thanks,” she said and gave him a look from under her lashes. “Would you have any interest in a drive across state lines?”

  “You better believe it, woman.”

  As they went up the lawn, their hands caught and held. She couldn’t keep the smile off of her face.

  When they got to his study, Nick went down on his haunches and opened the safe.

  “I don’t have room for the box itself,” he said with his head wedged into the wall of books. Inside, he was shuffling the contents around, making space. He took out the cross and handed it to Carter.

  She unwrapped the felt and stared at the old wood. “What an amazing story.”

  When Nick looked up at her, his eyes were tender.

  “What?” she asked him shyly.

  “You’re one hell of a woman—you know that? You come up here, find the missing gold, discover the reverend’s final resting place, and get his diary. And then you go and do something truly amazing.”

  “What was that?”

  “You get my heart, as well.” He smiled. “Which I had no intention of losing to someone.”

  Carter grinned and wrapped the cross back up. “Sometimes you get what you’re after. Even when you don’t know you’re looking for it.”

  Feeling quite delighted, she wandered over to a window. When she frowned, he asked what she was looking
at.

  “There’s a…This is ridiculous.” She leaned forward a little. “There’s a red hawk in that tree.”

  “What’s it doing?”

  “Just sitting up there. Staring at us.” She cleared her throat and looked over at Nick, who’d put his head back into the safe. “Do you believe in that ghost stuff?”

  “That Red Hawk haunts my mountain?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes when I’m up there, I feel like someone’s watching me. Why?”

  “I swear that hawk is staring at me as if it knows…Never mind…” Carter laughed awkwardly. “I’ll go get the gold from the kitchen. And, later, I’ll have my head examined for delusional tendencies.”

  While she was gone, Nick finished reordering the contents of the safe and was about to take his head out of the wall when his hand brushed against the small red box that held his grandmother’s diamond. He took the leather case out and flipped the lid open. The diamond gleamed and his eyes flared.

  Bingo, he thought, slipping it into his pocket.

  They were traveling toward the ferry on the highway when Nick looked over at her. “I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “Really?” Carter smiled, thinking that life didn’t get any better. The summer sun was streaming down on them, the air was blowing her hair in a soft swirl, and the sexiest man she’d ever seen was looking at her like she was the center of his world.

  “It’s been a little hard to get through,” he said dryly.

  “Oh?”

  “I figure I better do it now while we’re alone.”

  She felt the car slow and then heard the crackle of loose gravel as Nick pulled over to the side of the road. He’d stopped in the middle of a valley framed by majestic mountains. Fields of grass and wildflowers backed up on either side of them and chickadees and red-winged blackbirds flirted in the still, hot air.

  Nick took her hands in his and he leaned in close. There was a long pause. She’d never seen him so serious.